by Greg James
“I do not know,” said Anhedon. “It could have been an omen, a warning, or nothing at all—an afterthought of the abyss.”
Cacea looked back to the mausoleum, distraught. She touched her face and found tears there. Fear was etched into her features exactly as it had been on the face of the statue. She looked to Anhedon. He said nothing. He saw it as well as she knew it.
“Let us go on,” he said quietly, “and swiftly.”
So they did. All other cries and pleas that forlornly emerged from the dark spaces of necropolises and mausolea, they ignored.
*
After a time, they halted in their journey.
Cacea could feel pain and sickness crawling through her limbs.
“I need to rest,” she said, “not for long, a short time.”
Anhedon led her to the hollow shell of a fallen idol, “I will see our way ahead and return. Be ready.”
She nodded. A faint tremor passed through the ground after he left.
Not for long, she thought, but I need to catch my breath.
It was the dead air of this place. She knew it. She could feel it inside her, dry with disease.
But, in the shade of the stone, her senses were clearing somewhat and the aches in her flesh and bones eased—though she guessed it would not be for long.
She heard a whining sound.
Cacea looked up.
The whining went by again, and it was accompanied by a flicker of motion.
She moved to the opening in the cracked shell of the idol and looked outside.
There was a giant insect there, flying low, circling close to the shade of her shelter. It was long-tailed, with silver-gossamer wings and multi-faceted eyes that glittered like black shards of diamond. Its tail ended in a proboscis that swayed back and forth through the air.
As she watched it circle, she realised the whining was not a whining. It was a light droning. It lulled her a little, making her eyes feel heavy. She could smell honey and nectar, and could faintly taste them on her tongue. She licked at her lips; felt herself gently swaying as the insect stopped its circling and came towards her.
Cacea was vaguely aware of the insect being close by, and of its tail having arched high over its head. Through bleary eyes, she saw that the proboscis ended in what resembled a puckered, whitish human mouth; it was open, and the low droning song came from its lips.
She found herself drawing closer to the insect as it hung in the air. Her mouth was open, her lips were parting, and her tongue becoming moist and expectant. She could feel the song inside her; exciting her skin, and making the buds of her breasts grow firm. There was a honeyed wetness between her legs. A dull part of her mind told her to move away from it, but she could not. The siren song of the creature felt too good. It droned closer to her, the proboscis lengthening until the soft lips of the feminine mouth were almost touching her own, about to meet as those of lovers meet.
A flash of movement.
Falling shadow and separating light.
Anhedon pushed her hard onto the ground and brought Baro Vane down in a shimmering arc, cleaving the creature in two.
The droning song died away.
Cacea’s eyes fluttered and her head cleared as from a dream-haze. And she saw, rather than a tongue protruding from between the fine teeth and soft lips of the proboscis-mouth, there was a barbed ebony spine that wept viscid tears of poison. She recoiled in horror as Anhedon reached over and broke it off with one hand.
He helped Cacea to her feet.
“What was that?”
“A Chalga.”
“But you said the Chalga were like the daemon in the lake.”
“They are one and the same. Come with me,” he said, “I will show you.”
She followed him into the shadows of some nearby ruins, where he used Baro Vane to gesture at empty skins lying on the ground. Cacea recognised the snouts and deformed swinish flesh.
“When they reach a certain maturity,” Anhedon said, “they slough off their flesh and skin to become as the creature I just slew.”
“Like maggots that mature into flies,” she said, in awe.
“Indeed so.”
As he finished speaking, the land around them shook violently again, and more roaring followed, but not so distant as it had been before.
“Death calls out for this world,” Anhedon said. “Let us pray we do not die along with it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The path Anhedon and Cacea were on descended into the cleft of a valley cut through the stone of the alien plains. Cacea saw obscure, colossal shapes veiled in smoke and mist roaming along its heights. She caught but glimpses of the forms beneath: a patch of raw, striated matter; a crest of some gigantic time-warped armour; a limb that could have been a tendril, tongue, or part of a great finger; and eyes that swam with the lost nebulas and galaxies of bright, incipient madness.
“Do not look long on them, Cacea,” Anhedon said.
“What are they?”
“The Gods in Shadow.”
“The Gods,” she whispered. “They can’t be. Why would they come here?”
“Why not?” Anhedon asked, “This world is at its end and they have come to feast on its last moments. Why do you think it has hung for so long in the void? Have you never savoured a piece of meat before? We are as flies to them. We suffer and we die. They watch and do naught, until the feast of world after world is served to them here.”
Cacea looked away from them though she could still feel their presence as a pervasive weight in the air. They seemed utterly silent and watchful as they explored, awaiting the end of this, their next feeding ground. She had no desire to draw their attention to herself and Anhedon.
The valley finally opened out into a circular depression where a forest spread out before them; through the arching trees and seething growths, Cacea could see a carven structure at its heart. She could not see clearly what it might be. The shadows and dismal shapes of the forest gathered too close around it.
However, she could not escape its familiarity – something there, she knew.
“What is that place?” she asked.
“It is as nameless as all else here,” Anhedon said, “but it harbours a means to our salvation. If we reach it in time, then we will not die with the last remains of this world.”
“Can you not tell me what it is?”
“It is a door, Cacea,” he said, in a strange, light tone, “a door that will take us away from here.”
“Okay,” she said though she did not like the change in Anhedon’s voice.
It was unsettling.
He drew Baro Vane from its scabbard of polished bone as they neared the edge of the forest. The decorated blade made a slithering sound that Cacea hated. There was no way clear before them through the trees so Anhedon set about the task of cutting a path towards the vine-strewn structure.
As she followed him in among the trees, Cacea saw how the trees were not trees as she knew them. Their bark was a translucent reptilian skin and, between its enseamed scales, she could see worn veins and mottled arteries flowing with a slow, arboreal blood. Great leaves hung down from their bows glistening with an oily, copper sheen, and Cacea was sure she could smell burnt sulphur and rotting flesh.
The undergrowth about her feet was no less unnatural. Patches of what seemed to be a grey grass writhed when disturbed like tumescent worms. Hoods of damp, fleshy petals curled back on themselves to reveal a barbed, sickly whiteness at the cobwebbed hearts of swaying flowers that grew between the roots of the trees. And they were swaying without there being the slightest breath of wind.
Cacea watched every step that she took. It was hard work. She tried not to touch anything, which was not so easy as the cancerous flora of the forest closed in, despite Anhedon’s ceaseless hacking at its numerous limbs.
She entertained the idea that the closeness of the trees and suppurating flowers was down to Anhedon’s violence. This forest was a thing of flesh and blood, and they we
re wounding it deeply with their presence. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see there was no open space behind. The way was shut though it had been cleared of life by the dead man’s sword mere moments ago.
Were those voices in the trees that she could hear?
“How much further, Anhedon?”
“I believe we are almost to the heart,” he said.
“We are not wanted here.”
“I feel it too, Cacea. I hear the voice of the forest. Do not listen, do not fear, and keep to the path that I am making.”
“I will not stray,” she replied.
No, I will not wander though I wish I could.
As they went on, she pushed loose lianas and vines from her face. They caught in her hair and scratched at her arms, like broken fingers desperately trying to hang onto something. Wordless ululations sounded from the dark spaces between the trees.
The voice of the forest, she thought, but what does it say?
Grass and undergrowth rustled and whispered, here and there.
A sticky tongue-like frond snatched at her calf. It tore the skin, stung the flesh and made her bleed. Cacea stopped, knelt and unpeeled the parasitic growth from her leg.
When she looked up from it, the forest was closing at Anhedon’s back; a thin portal through the corpse-soft foliage was all that remained.
Cacea cried out, dashed for the narrow space and jumped through it.
She was caught – but not by Anhedon.
A softness that was somewhere between flesh and flora closed tight around her. She could not see as it pressed itself across her face. She was ensnared. And she could feel it becoming damp; a corrupt wetness was laving her body. The juices hurt her eyes and tasted bitter on her lips, reminding her of the first time she drank too much sour wine with Aarthe. It was beginning to burn like the bites of innumerable insects.
Eating me, she thought, it’s eating me alive.
And where was Anhedon?
She could not call for him, but he had not been that far ahead of her. He must have noticed she was not there. But he did not come, and the shroud only wound tighter around her, and its fluids only burned the more.
She didn’t want to die like this.
This was an ignoble end.
A sound came through the trees, and it was like salvation.
The poisonous hood unfurled, letting her fall to the ground. It collapsed in on itself and retreated away into the undergrowth. Cacea shivered on the ground, waiting for the stinging and burning of her skin to subside.
The sound was all around her, and it was a finer song than the one sung by the Chalga-insect, or the trees. It was a lilting aria, rising and falling on the still, dead air. The copper leaves of the trees hummed with it, weeping tears of sulphur-blood that smouldered on the ground.
The song swam over Cacea; soothing and easing her. The pain in her body washed away as if she had been bathed in healing salts. The delicate melody resounded inside her skull and she saw things.
She saw a structure looming over her that was somewhere between being a temple, a city, and a palace. Its towers were singular mountains, and its ramparts were beetling cliffs. It looked like it had grown out of the earth itself to stand alone, stern and solemn, against the dying of this fragmented, nameless world.
She did not remember getting to her feet, nor the last span of her journey through the forest. The song was all. The song was everything. It drew her on and she was content to be drawn by it, until she felt the ground change from earth to stone beneath her feet.
Cacea stopped though the song did not.
She was at the heart of the forest. Glowing lanterns hung from the carved mouths of ornamental beasts, illuminating what appeared to be an orchard but the trees were all exquisitely-cut stone.
Cacea listened to the song and knew it was to be her guide. She followed it through its crescendos and diminuendos, and it led her through sculpture gardens where pools of silver and moonlight shone, dragon-scaled pavilions where witch-fires burned livid shadows onto the walls, cemeteries where shattered masks adorned the graves, and finally, to a promenade flanked by crumbling obelisks.
She had seen no sign of Anhedon.
Had he followed the song as well?
Was he here somewhere ahead, waiting for her?
The air she breathed here was sombre, as though she were walking upon hallowed ground. The song was stronger as well. It seemed to resonate from the obelisks, but they were not where it came from. She could feel its source was somewhere else, but close at hand. It mounted through the air and through her soul, rousing her to follow it, to find where it came from. Her footsteps rang out along the promenade as she walked along the stone path. At times, she thought that she noticed other travellers beyond the obelisks. Other travellers making their way along other promenades, heading in the same direction as she was.
The song soared to an ecstatic peak and Cacea found herself running along the promenade. Obelisks dashed by – flicker-flicker-flicker – as she hurried along, not wanting to be lost outside before the song came to its end. For when that end came, she knew there would be no more suns, no more light, and no more world.
The song was this planet’s final requiem.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Khale and Murtagh stood before a plain oak door.
“You are sure this is the way to Barneth’s sanctum?”
“Aye, Khale, that is my belief.”
“I hope it is a belief well-founded. Daybreak is not far away. This night’s work needs to be done swiftly.”
Or I shall be the plaything of those damned witches forever.
Murtagh moved to open the door but Khale stayed his hand. The Wanderer reached out himself but did not touch the door. He scried the air before it with his fingers, stroking through the ether as if he were seeking for something.
He lowered his hand and frowned through his bloodstained mane, “There is no ward on this door. I do not believe it.”
Murtagh pushed at the door and it swung inwards.
Nothing happens.
“I trust this not,” Khale said.
“I am thankful for it,” Murtagh replied as he led the way inside.
Khale followed, ill at ease.
“What are we meant to do here then?” Murtagh wondered aloud.
The chamber was paved with the same dark flagstones as the rest of the castle. It was a bare space, except for the image of something enthroned at the far end before a two-tiered altar of figured metal. A large bowl of bronze, supported on three clawed legs, rested atop the altar.
“By the Gods’ bones, what is that thing?”
The light caught the carved monstrosity curiously. It was not altogether a great spider, a moth, a crab, a cockroach or dragonfly, but something that spoke horribly of each such form. The substance it was sculpted from shone like rough diamond or splintered crystal, reflecting fragments of its carapace, gnarled limbs and bulbous eyes so that its shape appeared to flux and change with the light.
Hardly glancing at the bowl, Khale approached the idol on its throne, staring up into the many eyes framing its mandibles. He snorted. “They haven’t a clue, have they? After thousands of years, they still have not grasped what waits for them outside their own small world. You are awake. I hear your breath in the wind. I feel your stirring under the skin of things. You are the one, are you not? The one who was made me the master-puppet.”
Murtagh looked at Khale, “You know of this thing?”
“I do. It dwells in the Thoughtless Dark. Some believe it begat the Gods in Shadow. It has a name though I will not speak it here.”
Murtagh was peering at an inscription on its base. A crude scratching of letters that looked not to have been done by the forger of the idol. He read it out loud, “Juu ... Juular ... ?”
“Fool,” Khale said a moment later, “its name brings only death.”
As Murtagh finished speaking, he became aware of a foetor permeating the air. It must have been there when
they entered, but he had only become fully aware of it now, as it steadily increased in strength. Khale approached the polished bronze bowl set in its crucible on the altar. The stench issued from the vessel.
The Wanderer peered into it, and saw that it was completely full of an opaque, viscous substance. The odour emanating from it was truly foul; it reminded him of the day after a battle, when rot, sickness, and disease spread like wildfire among the wounded and the slain left on the field, although he could also detect an essence that put him in mind of the lower deeps of marshes and swamps.
As he watched, a tremor passed across the surface of the substance. Again, it came: a rippling motion as if it were being agitated, though no one else was in the chamber and no elements present could disturb it so.
The substance began to bulge and form a bulb-like shape at its centre, which arose from the surface, oozing grey tears of putrefaction. The bulb thickened in a matter of moments to take on a crude skull-form with hollow depressions for eyes and mouth. The head rose upon a swaying, fluid neck and torso. Long arms sprouted from the shape of shoulders, fluctuating through all the hues of things spoiled and putrid. These loose limbs ended in loose, thin tendrils that groped blindly at the air.
Khale struck out at the creature, only for his sword to pass through the fluid as if it were a fall of heavy rain.
Murtagh was speechless as the nightmare-thing before him finished pouring the last traces of itself from the bowl where it had been in repose. The elongated mass rushed at him, a tide of black quicksilver moving across the chamber in a single, sinuous motion that consumed the space between them. Its lipless mouth opened and continued to open, becoming a gaping wound that muttered to itself in the language of decayed silt and haunted mires.
Lightning swept over the fluid horror and it recoiled from Murtagh. Turning about, it faced Khale once more. His sword was strapped across his back. His eyes were steady with concentration. His mouth was quick as he chanted and intoned conjuration after conjuration; hurling centuries of goetic knowledge at the daemon they now faced.
Murtagh watched in awe, but he could see Khale’s magic was barely slowing the creature born from the bowl. Its matter oozed and lost its solidity in places as it was touched by fire and fury, but not for long enough.
